How to add an “Upload Image” button to an object that automatically inserts the URL of the image into a field

Question

I have been developing a visualforce page that renders product catalog PDFs from a PriceBook2. It loops over every Product2 in the PriceBook2 and puts all their field values into a nice table. The catalogs also include product photos, which are currently being manually uploaded to the Documents object and their URLs are copied and pasted by hand into a custom URL field on the Product2 object.

I would like to add a button to my Product2 page layout to automate the process of uploading product images. I want the user to be able to click a button to upload an image (probably to the Documents object) and then automatically insert the URL of the newly uploaded image into a custom field on the Product2 record.

I am aware that the Notes & Attachments related list offers some similar functionality, but as each product only has one image, I would prefer to just have something that stores them in Documents and then inserts the URL for that image into a text/URL field instead. That way I do not have to write any extra code in my product catalog generator to loop through Notes & Attachments and parse product photos from there.

Currently I have a custom URL field Product2.Product_Image__c. I would like to just be able to have a button on the Product layout that the user clicks, brings up a little upload widget, and then inserts the URL of that image automatically into that field so that it can be accessed in my visualforce page.

I am assuming I will need to make a custom image upload widget in Visualforce, add a button for it on the Product2 page layout and have some kind of Apex trigger or workflow rule that automatically populates the image URL into Product2.Product_Image__c

Does anyone know a quick and easy way to do this?

Answer 1

If you used a Rich Text Area (RTA), you could capture the image, then put it into the RTA field. For example, you could have an <input type="file" /> next to each product, and when the user selects the image from browsing, use readAsDataURL to get a data URL, then put the data into the field:

// Written as apex code as an example
Product2 someRecord = [SELECT Id FROM Product2 WHERE Id = :selectedProductId];
someRecord.RTA_Field__c = '<img src="'+ dataUri + '" >';
update someRecord;

When you do this, Salesforce converts the data URI into a file that will be stored in Salesforce's CDN, and you can then display the image simply by using the field. No triggers needed, no complicated work, and only about 20-30 lines of code in JavaScript. Similarly, though, you could also choose to use an <apex:inputFile />, and do the entire thing in Apex Code:

    Product2 someRecord = [SELECT Id FROM Product2 WHERE Id = :selectedProductId];
    String dataUri = 'data:'+ contentType + ';base64,'+EncodingUtil.base64Encode(fileBody);
    someRecord.RTA_Field__c = '<img src="' + dataUri + '" />';
    update someRecord;

Other similar solutions exist without any complicated designs necessary, but hopefully this will give you some ideas to get started.

Answer 2

As advised by sfdcfox, you can use Rich Text Area(RTA) field and display the image into it.

I had implemented a similar kind of requirement wherein user would upload a image through a input file(or capture using phone's camera), which would be displayed in the rich text area field as a URL.

Below is the code that was done for this requirement.

This is the VF page code:

<!-----------------Visualforce Page: Start---------------------->
<!-----------------input type file---------------------->
<input id="cameraImageId" type="file" accept="image/*;capture=camera"/>

<!--Action funtion uploads the data to document object-->
<apex:actionFunction name="callUploadMethod" action="{!upload}" oncomplete="fillRichTextArea('{!imageURL}')">
    <apex:param name="theURL" value=""/>
</apex:actionFunction>
<div id="waitMessage" style="display: none">Please wait...</div>

<script>
// Camera Change Event: The below code is used to capture and upload a image to the Visit Notes field
j$('#cameraImageId').change(function(event) {
    var file = event.target.files[0];
    // generate a new FileReader object
    var reader = new FileReader();
    // inject an image with the src url
    reader.onload = function(event) {      
       dataurl =event.target.result;
        j$("#waitMessage").show();                    
        callUploadMethod(dataurl);
    }
    // when the file is read it triggers the onload event above.
    reader.readAsDataURL(file);

});

// Display Capurted Image in Rich Text Area
function fillRichTextArea(imageURL) {
    var heightValue = "375";
    var widthValue = "500";
    for(var i in CKEDITOR.instances) {
        CKEDITOR.instances[i].insertHtml("<img src='" + imageURL + "' height = '" + heightValue + "' width = '" + widthValue + "'/>");
    }  
    j$("#waitMessage").hide();
}    
</script>
<!------------VisualForce Page:End-------------------->

Below is the Apex Method, that creates the document record.

//Apex Class Method(Called from Action Function)
// method to create an attachment!
public PageReference upload() { 

    String theURL = ApexPages.currentPage().getParameters().get('theURL');
    theURL = theURL.substring(theURL.indexOf(',') +1);

    Blob encodedBlob = EncodingUtil.base64Decode(theURL);
    document.body =   encodedBlob;

    // put it in running user's folder 
    document.AuthorId = UserInfo.getUserId(); 
    document.FolderId = UserInfo.getUserId();
    document.Name='Product-Name'; 
    try { 
        insert document;
        imageURL='/servlet/servlet.FileDownload?file=';
        imageURL=imageURL + document.id;
    } catch (DMLException e) { ApexPages.addMessage(new ApexPages.message(ApexPages.severity.ERROR,'Error uploading file'));return null; } 
    // clears the viewstate 
    finally { document.body = null; document = new Document(); } 
    return null; 
}

You might need to change fillRichTextArea method, to insert the URL at the right place.

Hope this helps.

Answer 3

Well, after spending a bunch of time struggling with the methods that were suggested, I decided to just roll my own solution using a pure documents approach.

This method does not do anything with rich text fields and uploads the files directly to the documents object. I'm not really an expert on Apex or Visualforce so I imagine there are some things I did here that aren't quite as elegant as they can be, but I am pretty pleased with the results and wanted to share this with you guys to gather feedback on how I can improve it and how it stacks up against the methods you guys suggested.

Here is my Apex class:

public class ProductPhotosExtension {
    private final Product2 prod;
    private String imageURL;
    private String errorURL = '/apex/ProductPhotoError';

    public transient Blob fileBody {
        get; set;
    }

    public String fileName {
        get; set;
    }

    public ProductPhotosExtension(ApexPages.StandardController stdController) {
        stdController.addFields(new String[] {
            'Id',
            'Name',
            'Product_Image_ID__c',
            'Product_Image__c'
        });
        this.prod = (Product2)stdController.getRecord();
    }

    private PageReference showError(String errorTitle, String errorText) {
            errorTitle = EncodingUtil.urlEncode(errorTitle, 'UTF-8');
            errorText = EncodingUtil.urlEncode(errorText, 'UTF-8');
            errorURL = errorURL + '?errorTitle=' + errorTitle;
            errorURL = errorURL + '&errorText=' + errorText;
            errorURL = errorURL + '&id=' + prod.Id;
            PageReference errPage = new PageReference(errorURL);
            return errPage;
    }

    public PageReference deletePhoto() {
        try { 
            Document document = [SELECT Id FROM Document WHERE Id = :prod.Product_Image_ID__c];
            prod.Product_Image_ID__c = null;
            prod.Product_Image__c = null;
            update prod;
            delete document;
        } catch (Exception e) {
            String errorTitle = 'Error deleting photo';
            String errorText = 'The photo may have already been deleted.';
            return showError(errorTitle, errorText);
        }

        return null;
    }    

    public PageReference upload() {
        Product2 refreshed_prod = [SELECT Id, Product_Image_ID__c FROM Product2 WHERE Id = :prod.Id];
        if (refreshed_prod.Product_Image_ID__c != null) {
            String errorTitle = 'Error uploading photo';
            String errorText = 'This product already has a photo.';
            return showError(errorTitle, errorText);           
        }


        Document document = new Document();
        document.Body = fileBody;
        document.Name = fileName;
        document.FolderId = '00l33000001ko9v';
        try {
            imageURL = '/servlet/servlet.FileDownload?file=';
            insert document;
            imageURL = imageURL + document.id;
            prod.Product_Image_ID__c = document.id; 
            prod.Product_Image__c = imageURL;
            update prod;            
        } catch (Exception e) { 
            String errorTitle = 'Error uploading photo';
            String errorText = 'Please make sure that the image file is not over 5MB' + 
                               ' and that you have enough space in your Documents';
            return showError(errorTitle, errorText);
        }

        return null;
    }

    public Blob getFileBody() {
        return fileBody;
    }

    public String getFileName() {
        return fileName;
    }

    public String getProductImage() {
        return prod.Product_Image__c;
    }

    public String getProductImageID() {
        return prod.Product_Image_ID__c;
    }

}

Here is the product uploader widget I embedded in my Product page layout (UploadProductPhoto.vfp):

<apex:page standardController="Product2" extensions="ProductPhotosExtension" sidebar="false" showheader="false">
    <apex:stylesheet value="{!$Resource.photouploaderstyles}"/>
    <apex:form id="photoUploaderForm" styleClass="photoUploaderForm">
        <apex:pageBlock mode="maindetail" id="sectionsContainer">
            <apex:pageBlockSection columns="1" id="input">
                <apex:pageBlockSectionItem id="inputSection" rendered="{!ISBLANK(ProductImageID)}">
                    <apex:outputLabel value="Product Image" for="fileImageId"/>
                    <apex:inputFile id="fileImageId" value="{!fileBody}" styleClass="inputFile"
                                    filename="{!fileName}" onchange="uploadFile(event);"/>
                </apex:pageBlockSectionItem>
                <div id="waitMessage" class="waitMessage">
                    Uploading file... Please wait.
                </div>
            </apex:pageBlockSection>
            <apex:pageBlockSection id="preview" columns="1" rendered="{!NOT(ISBLANK(ProductImageID))}">
                <apex:pageBlockSectionItem id="previewSection">
                    <apex:outputLabel value="Product Image" for="previewImageId"/>
                    <a href="{!ProductImage}" target="blank">
                        <img id="imagePreview" src="{!ProductImage}" class="previewImage"/>
                    </a>                
                    <a href="javascript:deleteFile();" class="deleteButton">X</a>
                </apex:pageBlockSectionItem>
            </apex:pageBlockSection>
        </apex:pageBlock>
        <apex:actionFunction name="callUploadMethod" action="{!upload}"/>   
        <apex:actionFunction name="callDeleteMethod" action="{!deletePhoto}"/>  
    </apex:form>

    <script>
        var input_divs = document.getElementsByClassName('inputFile');
        var input_div = input_divs[0];
        var wait_div = document.getElementById('waitMessage');    

        function getOffset(el) {
            el = el.getBoundingClientRect();
            return {
                left: el.left + window.scrollX,
                top: el.top + window.scrollY
            }
        }

        function deleteFile(event) {
            callDeleteMethod();
        }

        function uploadFile(event) {
            var file = event.target.files[0];
            var reader = new FileReader();

            reader.addEventListener("load", function () {
                callUploadMethod();
                input_div.setAttribute('type', 'hidden');
                input_rect = getOffset(input_div);
                wait_div.style.left = input_rect.left + 'px';
                wait_div.style.top = input_rect.top + 'px';
                wait_div.style.display = 'block';
            }, false);
            reader.readAsDataURL(file);             
        } 

    </script>
</apex:page>

Here is the stylesheet for the photo widget (photouploaderstyles.css):

.photoUploaderForm {
    width: 94%; 
    margin-left: 18%;
    position: fixed;
    overflow: hidden;
}

@media (max-width: 563px) {
    .photoUploaderForm {
        width: 155%;
        margin-left: 5%;
    }
}

.inputFile {
    width: 80%;
}

@media (max-width: 563px) {
    .inputFile {
        width: 45%;
    }
}

.waitMessage {
    position: absolute;
    text-align: center;
    padding: 5px 2% 5px 2%;
    background: #ffffff;
    border: 1px solid;
    border-color: #000000;
    display: none;
    width: 50%;
}

.previewImage {
    border: 1px dashed;
    border-color: #cccccc;
    height: 50px;
    padding: 2px;
}

.deleteButton {
    top: 10px;
    font-size: 0.6em;
    font-weight: 800;
    position: absolute; 
    background: #ff8989;
    margin: -1px 0px 0px 2px;
    padding: 1px 5px 1px 5px;
    text-decoration: none;
    border: 1px solid;
    border-color: #ff0000;
}

.deleteButton:link, .deleteButton:visited { 
    color: #ffffff;
}

.deleteButton:hover {
    background: #ff0000;
    text-decoration: none;
}

.deleteButton:active {
    color: #ff0000;
    background: #ffa0a0;
}

I also made a neat little error widget (ProductPhotoError) for handling errors, since the standard apex error messages look hideous in small-sized embedded VF pages:

<apex:page sidebar="false" showheader="false">
    <apex:stylesheet value="{!$Resource.photouploadererrorstyles}"/>
    <div class="errorMsgBox">
        <div class="errorMsgIcon">
            <svg viewBox="0 0 30 30" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">
                <circle cx="15" cy="15" r="14px" fill="#a50000"/>
                <text x="9" y="21" fill="#ffffff" font-size="2em">x</text>
            </svg>            
        </div>

        <div class="errorMsgTitleBar">
            <p class="errorMsgTitle">
                {!$CurrentPage.parameters.errorTitle}
            </p>            
        </div>

        <p class="errorMsgText">
            {!$CurrentPage.parameters.errorText}
        </p>
        <a href="/apex/UploadProductPhoto?id={!$CurrentPage.parameters.Id}" class="errorOKButton">OK</a>
    </div>
</apex:page>

And here is the style sheet for the error page (photouploadererrorstyles.css):

.errorMsgBox {
    margin: 0px 4% 0px 4%;
    border: 1px solid;
    border-color: #000000;
    padding: 2px;
    font-size: 1em;
    word-wrap: break-word;
    position: relative;
    display: block;
}

.errorMsgIcon {
    display: block;
    height: 30px;
    width: 30px;
    position: absolute;
    left: 5px;
    top: 5px;
}

.errorMsgTitleBar {
    text-align: center;
    margin: 0px;
    padding: 0px;
}

.errorMsgTitle {
    display: inline-block;
    margin: 0px 0px 2px 0px;
    padding: 0px;
    font-weight: bold;
}

.errorMsgText {
    margin: 0px 0px 0px 8%;
    padding: 0px 5px 2px 5px;
    text-align: center;
}

.errorOKButton {
    display: block;
    margin: 0px;
    padding: 0px;
    text-align: center;
}

What do you guys think?

P.S. the widget is embedded in the first column in a 2-column section on the page layout with a width value of "100%" and a height of "75px"

Answer 4

Regarding "That way I do not have to write any extra code in my product catalog generator to loop through Notes & Attachments and parse product photos from there."

What's so difficult about doing that? Any standard Visualforce controller can pull the object's attachments. Suppose you ensure that the product image file attachment always has the name "Product Image" in it. Then in Visualforce you can do something like this:

<apex:repeat value="{!Record.attachments}" var="att">
   <apex:image url="{!URLFOR($Action.Attachment.Download, att.id)}" 
     rendered='{!contains(att.Name, "Product Image")}' width="100px"/>
</apex:repeat>

Note that old-style Attachments are on their way out, so you'd do something similar with Files except I don't think the $Action syntax works for those. So it would look more like:

<apex:repeat value="{!Record.ContentDocumentLinks}" var="cdl">
   <apex:image url="{!'/sfc/servlet.shepherd/version/download/'+cdl.ContentDocument.LatestPublishedVersionId}" 
     rendered='{!contains(cdl.ContentDocument.Name, "Product Image")}' width="100px"/>
</apex:repeat>

If you're not using a standard controller then just ensure the relevant fields are queried.